Guides

Free cemetery guides.

Clear help for the people who keep the records. Read or copy anything you need.

New to the job

The job has two halves, the ground and the paper. What it involves, what it pays, and what to do in your first month.

The most common reason a board goes looking for help. What to secure first, who is worth interviewing, and in what order.

Where to look, in order, when the records cannot answer — and how to make sure the next call is easier.

What to do today, what not to do, and what to transcribe first when the paper is failing.

What the record has to do, the four things that break a binder or a spreadsheet, and how to move on without a big project.

Whether you have to retype everything (you mostly do not), and the right order to do it in if you do.

What belongs in a small association's yearly accounting, including the two numbers boards ask for and rarely have.

Balances, dues, plot sales and the care fund — the money half, and the mistake that cannot be repaired later.

Enter an email so the file has a place to go. All other guides are open.

One row per grave space, with owner, deed, interment and status. Excel or Google Sheets.

The interment register, with the two columns most cemeteries wish they had kept, and a tab for what you do not know.

Who owns which plot, what is owed, the perpetual care share, and every time a plot has changed hands.

The four separate places this category bills you, and how to work out a five-year total you can take to a board.

Free tiers are a real option. The four questions that decide whether one is genuinely free for your cemetery.

No account, no server, works unplugged, exports to Excel any time — and what that means if a vendor disappears.

What is backed up for you, and the five-minute habit that covers the rest.

What the association's rulebook needs to contain, where to find a model, and what to do if you cannot find yours.

What the Cemetery Oversight Act asks of small volunteer cemeteries, in plain words. Not legal advice.